Mayan, they are based off the Mayan demon bat god camaztoz. Who was the keep of the underworld. Oh and they're also named after the Mayan underworld like the other is named after the Aztecs
Thanks. I was cringing. Xibalba is heavily inspired by the popular Mayan Hero Twin myth/story. The most preserved version is known from K'iche Maya and written in book called Popol Vuh. Particularly, when the Hero Twins had to spend a night in the House of Bats, where they had to fight bats/bat-demons. Many Pretender gods are also from this story. The Demon Macaw is the Vucub Caquix or Seven Macaw, a being so pretty and shiny that he pretended to be god (he was beaten by twins). The rulers of Xibalba: One Death and Seven Death (Hun Came and Vucub Came). And that's about it. I don't remember Hun Balam (One Jaguar) from Popol Vuh. The other Mayan god is the god of rain as his default name is Tlaloc and Bolon-ti-ku, which seems to be a minor god of war, but not included in the Popol Vuh. The rest look to be of Aztec origin. Personally, I would like Hun-Chowen and Hun-Batz, the monkey gods, gods of craft, included. The hero mod further included interesting figures from the Popol Vuh, such as Zipacna, the big strong crocodile god of earthquakes.
Something I’d say for the basic zotz is that I think you are still over estimating the lance version compared to the club version, the lance version do 1 more damage than the club guys on the first hit but after that first hit they do 6 less damage every swing. Club guys liked the 2-handed weapon bonus damage thing getting added.
Actually the lance zotz don't even do more damnage on the first hit. Their lances are not heavy lances, so the damage bonus is only half their strength which is 4 at best (half of 7 is 4 if rounded up) so they only do 13 damage compared to the 15 of the club guys. Sure they pierce armor by 20%, won't get repelled by spears, and they have a small chance of repelling stuff themselves, but that hardly makes up for the much lower damage and slightly lower defense.
I like recruitment points overall. I don't think they were added solely to nerf specific nations but rather as a thematic constraint on units intended to be relatively rare but that doesn't have much armor. There's a bunch of nations that were seriously affected by this, though Xibalba got punched the hardest. But it also seriously affected R'lyeh and (pre-rework) Yomi, none of which needed nerfing per se.
I'm a position of liking the concept of recruitment points more than the execution. Dominions has always been an asymmetrical game and that's part of the charm, but the rec-point system as it implemented is sadly poorly balanced, making many units which were already less-than-worth-recruiting even less useful (Zotz, Prinicipes, Light Cavalry units, etc).
I think it was more meant to balance amazing stat, but low resource cost units, so certain nations couldn't crap out an amazing early/mid game army in 1-2 turns. I am specifically thinking eagle/jaguar warriors, but I am sure many nations have units that would fit the bill to at least some extent.
@@matthewswenson3066 For sure, and I think Xibalba were also kind of a meme in how you could mass their troops. Recruitment is important for balance changes, but as with all balance changes it's not going to be a perfect solution.
I know it's a year later, but I really feel like they just added the feature because they wanted troops to be recruited from population centers rather than barren mountains.
Hey Lucid! Just wanted to thank you for doing this nation overview. I've always loved mezoamerican mythology, and watching your nation really helped me perform better with the bat bois (now I can actually -survive- the first year). Also, where did you find get that art for the Xibalbans man? It's gorgeous and I'd love to have it as a wallpaper. :P
Camazotz are better but you can't get as many, the recruitment point limitation is pretty significant. I'm usually willing to take the hit for speeding up research, because ah itz are still usable in combat. I agree that you do want some camazotz though. I've never had much luck doing pure scales expand with EA Xibalba (frogs ironically make that more viable in later eras despite their bad rep). I've had good year 1 runs with awake expander and with an imprisoned rainbow. Sun guides can clear most provinces w/o losses with an imprisoned bless. Something like +4-8 hp and reinvigoration is good on both your cap-only recruits but also on mages (harder to kill with random evocations). Since you don't really need huge resource or recruitment point counts you can trash those a bit and add some resistances plus attack/defense skill. Works well with the national summons too, so I prefer this route. But dormant titan is a lot safer. Problem with scorpions during expansion is that they also take horrific losses just like bats. Low defense and even the recruitment-limited (10) ones still have only 2/square, 12 prot, and unimpressive defense. Even weak indies will kill that pretty fast. I could see them screwing up someone w/o poison resist though, especially if buffed.
Really screwed me to hear the background music ("Surrender" I guess?) since the That Chapter channel uses it a lot right before a denouement or a finale etc., and I've been binging both this channel and That Chapter
Personally, though it is by no means the best pick, I like picking a fairly scales heavy imprisoned pretender (with a bunch of STR) and pick either Turmoil/prod/luck (for a decent amount of guards and sinc Xib has *really* nice Gods) and getting a lot of guards or Order/Sloth/Magic and shitting out a ton of club or spear guys while recruiting the 120g 12rp (15 in M3) for super research. Though that is mainly since I dislike expanders and while Xib is the one n ation I'd like a good expander on, Xib's expanders are horrid (in my opinion), like seriously a Snek with a ton of E and a big STR bless would beat out all current XIB gods in the expansion department (in my opinion) Though I consider myself bad at DOM5 so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I think the main problem with playing a blood nation, especially one that is kind of weak early on, but is very efficient at blood hunting and get very strong in the mid/late game is that experienced opponents will want to take you out ASAP, and they are likely to be able to get others to join them in doing so pretty easily At least, that is what I do in my games (and what I see many other players do), so usually all major blood nations are dead by the late mid game. I never had a major blood nation neighbor that even made it into the mid game...
In early age are there more people playing rush nations or mid-late game nations? It might depend a lot on who is starting next to you and how well diplomacy goes.
I wonder if enforcing a mandatory NAP for all players in the first year might help solve this. Even as a toggle option in the game creation. bumps would still happen but it might give certain nations a chance to actually build up some decent forces and research.
I always thought it was weird that Zotz had cold-blooded considering that bats are mammals. That being said, bats don't usually live in cold regions so I guess it makes some sense.
MA/LA is even stranger. You have bats that very much suffer in cold, but frogs that are no more hindered than any other standard unit in cold scales, and some annoying anti-synergies as a result.
OK, here's a book. (But no, you _don't_ have to reply to this.) I just watched this video for the second time. In fact, I'm going back through the whole series - which I don't remember all that well - because I've been trying to play EA Xibalba with... limited success. :) I wanted to play an awake expander, just because that's so much fun, so I did that in my first game. And that worked well (at least until my god bumped with an entire army, _with_ the god of Kailasa, where I wasn't expecting them - although that was long after expansion). But I seemed to be short of money all the time. And I didn't dare send my god outside of her dominion, where her bless wouldn't work. (She died in that battle with Kailasa when I took that risk once. Admittedly, her dominion wouldn't have saved her in that one. I just wanted her to hold down a fort siege for _one turn,_ and I wasn't expecting her to need to fight at all. Bad miscalculation. Well, with all of our priests, I got her back the next turn, minus one level of nature magic.) Then I thought I'd try a scales build. And against the AI (I only play SP), we expanded just fine. It turned out I didn't _need_ an awake expander (though our attrition was really high). The problem, in both games (but especially the second one), is that my units are just so _weak._ They die in droves. Kailasa had an invulnerability bless, so we struggled to kill them when they attacked. And in my current game, Arcoscephale has a killer bless on their flying cavalry, and my poor bats just can't seem to damage them at all. I'm always too greedy, anyway. Playing against the AI, I always have far more provinces than the other nations, and I try to build forts on the best provinces. But even with a scales build, I struggle to do that _and_ recruit mages _and_ recruit bats, all at the same time. And the problem always appears during my second year, when I'm attacked by a neighbor with _much_ stronger units, and I haven't built up enough research or enough mages,... or else I just don't know how to fight them. My first game was actually doing better than my second attempt. (I haven't abandoned either game. I'm just experimenting.) Arcoscephale is tiny, compared to us. But it's rare that I win a fight, even when their armies aren't very big, because they outclass us so badly. And I can't swamp them with numbers when we lose nearly everyone even in a _successful_ battle. I just now got Horde of Skeletons, but we don't have too many mages who can cast it, and my province graph looks like an octopus, since I was greedy enough to just keep expanding everywhere I could, even when it made little strategic sense. Heh, heh. Right now, I'm thinking I should compromise with my two previous attempts and pick something right in the middle - a dormant titan or monster who _can_ fight during the second year, if we need him, but will still give us decent scales. Anyway, long story short, this is why I'm re-watching this series. You've already given me some ideas I missed (and forgot from the first time I watched this video). And I don't remember what you did for a pretender, either. Besides, these are always fun. Thanks!
@@yugonostalgia8961 Yeah, I did well with this nation when I could survive the early game and amass enough of everything. But that took awhile. And it would always require having particular neighbors who weren't mindlessly aggressive. I only play single-player, which is undoubtedly easier than multiplayer, but the AI is tends to be really weird. Often - no matter which nation I play - a nation starting clear across the map will just expand in a straight line right for my capital - ignoring the indie provinces in every other direction and ignoring their other neighbors. So I get in an early war with someone who has no reason to be fighting me at all. And you can't raid in single-player the way I see it in these multiplayer games, because the AI usually has the money for lots and lots of PD (and the money to outspend me for mercenaries, too, even when I bid far more than they're worth). On the other hand, a human neighbor would know how weak bats are at first, so I'm not sure how much difference that would make. Except, I suppose, that they know a very early war would limit their own expansion elsewhere and invite an attack by their other neighbors. Anyway, I did enjoy the last Xibalba game I tried, but I started over several times. :)
@@Bill_Garthright honestly just theorycrafting EA Xilbalba probably does better in multiplayer than singleplayer. The one thing bats like least of all is swarms of garbage... Even AI mass recruit indie light infantry trounce bats. But with human opponents early on you're more likely to be facing a small group of sacreds or a monster - something you can counter with early magic or a bless
@@Bill_Garthright did you watch Lucid's Xilbalba game? He did really well against vanheim and Agatha - it's just he was too broke to find a counter to neifelheim, which is Xilbalba #1 threat anyways so
@@Madhattersinjeans There is an expression "[something] recieved a beating with a nerfbat", which is the more flowery way of saying something got nerfed in a videogame. In this case the bat was hit with a nerfbat, which resulted in a nerfed bat.
Zotz, Skinshifters, Mictlan Sacreds, certain Elves, some cav... there's actually a surprising number of units that got much less massable because of Recruitment Points.
not a fan of 60 min+ national overviews, not gonna lie. But that map of yours looks AMAZING!!! I love it! may not be entirely balanced, but that's often the case with interesting and flavourful maps, keep up the good work!
I think you could just bring a couple slaves for starting the sabbath, maybe a buff and clear your encumberance and then start earthquaking. No need to bring too many slaves.
You can check the patrol strength of a unit when you click their precision stat.
Mayan, they are based off the Mayan demon bat god camaztoz. Who was the keep of the underworld. Oh and they're also named after the Mayan underworld like the other is named after the Aztecs
Thanks. I was cringing.
Xibalba is heavily inspired by the popular Mayan Hero Twin myth/story. The most preserved version is known from K'iche Maya and written in book called Popol Vuh.
Particularly, when the Hero Twins had to spend a night in the House of Bats, where they had to fight bats/bat-demons.
Many Pretender gods are also from this story. The Demon Macaw is the Vucub Caquix or Seven Macaw, a being so pretty and shiny that he pretended to be god (he was beaten by twins). The rulers of Xibalba: One Death and Seven Death (Hun Came and Vucub Came). And that's about it. I don't remember Hun Balam (One Jaguar) from Popol Vuh. The other Mayan god is the god of rain as his default name is Tlaloc and Bolon-ti-ku, which seems to be a minor god of war, but not included in the Popol Vuh. The rest look to be of Aztec origin.
Personally, I would like Hun-Chowen and Hun-Batz, the monkey gods, gods of craft, included.
The hero mod further included interesting figures from the Popol Vuh, such as Zipacna, the big strong crocodile god of earthquakes.
top tier artwork , keep it up
Thanks!
That is a very beautiful map.
Love the Long and in-depth video 🙏
I can't get enough of Lucid saying, "But... yeah." lol
Something I’d say for the basic zotz is that I think you are still over estimating the lance version compared to the club version, the lance version do 1 more damage than the club guys on the first hit but after that first hit they do 6 less damage every swing. Club guys liked the 2-handed weapon bonus damage thing getting added.
Actually the lance zotz don't even do more damnage on the first hit. Their lances are not heavy lances, so the damage bonus is only half their strength which is 4 at best (half of 7 is 4 if rounded up) so they only do 13 damage compared to the 15 of the club guys. Sure they pierce armor by 20%, won't get repelled by spears, and they have a small chance of repelling stuff themselves, but that hardly makes up for the much lower damage and slightly lower defense.
Lucid, the gifts spells are not personal spells so you can't really compare them to stuff like temper flesh or use them to buff communions.
This is fun. Listening to you while playing stellaris :) Much fun.
Dominions podcast!
Amazing artwork
Big fan of this content
I like recruitment points overall. I don't think they were added solely to nerf specific nations but rather as a thematic constraint on units intended to be relatively rare but that doesn't have much armor. There's a bunch of nations that were seriously affected by this, though Xibalba got punched the hardest. But it also seriously affected R'lyeh and (pre-rework) Yomi, none of which needed nerfing per se.
I'm a position of liking the concept of recruitment points more than the execution. Dominions has always been an asymmetrical game and that's part of the charm, but the rec-point system as it implemented is sadly poorly balanced, making many units which were already less-than-worth-recruiting even less useful (Zotz, Prinicipes, Light Cavalry units, etc).
I think it was more meant to balance amazing stat, but low resource cost units, so certain nations couldn't crap out an amazing early/mid game army in 1-2 turns. I am specifically thinking eagle/jaguar warriors, but I am sure many nations have units that would fit the bill to at least some extent.
@@matthewswenson3066 For sure, and I think Xibalba were also kind of a meme in how you could mass their troops.
Recruitment is important for balance changes, but as with all balance changes it's not going to be a perfect solution.
I know it's a year later, but I really feel like they just added the feature because they wanted troops to be recruited from population centers rather than barren mountains.
Hey Lucid! Just wanted to thank you for doing this nation overview. I've always loved mezoamerican mythology, and watching your nation really helped me perform better with the bat bois (now I can actually -survive- the first year).
Also, where did you find get that art for the Xibalbans man? It's gorgeous and I'd love to have it as a wallpaper. :P
Made the art - i might should upload the backgrounds somewhere for wallpapers
That map is incredible
Just a heads up: if I recall correctly, the ‘X’ in ‘Xibalba’ is actually pronounced as though it was an ‘Sh’
Strictly, /ʃiɓalˈɓa/. So, yes, but also (more mildly) the "b" sound is voiced. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xibalba
Good point! I'm probably going to use the wrong pronunciation the rest of the video!
I didn't look at the time before clicking the video...
yeaaaah! let's go!
Camazotz are better but you can't get as many, the recruitment point limitation is pretty significant. I'm usually willing to take the hit for speeding up research, because ah itz are still usable in combat. I agree that you do want some camazotz though.
I've never had much luck doing pure scales expand with EA Xibalba (frogs ironically make that more viable in later eras despite their bad rep). I've had good year 1 runs with awake expander and with an imprisoned rainbow. Sun guides can clear most provinces w/o losses with an imprisoned bless. Something like +4-8 hp and reinvigoration is good on both your cap-only recruits but also on mages (harder to kill with random evocations). Since you don't really need huge resource or recruitment point counts you can trash those a bit and add some resistances plus attack/defense skill. Works well with the national summons too, so I prefer this route. But dormant titan is a lot safer.
Problem with scorpions during expansion is that they also take horrific losses just like bats. Low defense and even the recruitment-limited (10) ones still have only 2/square, 12 prot, and unimpressive defense. Even weak indies will kill that pretty fast. I could see them screwing up someone w/o poison resist though, especially if buffed.
Please upload videos again.
Really screwed me to hear the background music ("Surrender" I guess?) since the That Chapter channel uses it a lot right before a denouement or a finale etc., and I've been binging both this channel and That Chapter
Personally, though it is by no means the best pick, I like picking a fairly scales heavy imprisoned pretender (with a bunch of STR) and pick either Turmoil/prod/luck (for a decent amount of guards and sinc Xib has *really* nice Gods) and getting a lot of guards or Order/Sloth/Magic and shitting out a ton of club or spear guys while recruiting the 120g 12rp (15 in M3) for super research.
Though that is mainly since I dislike expanders and while Xib is the one n ation I'd like a good expander on, Xib's expanders are horrid (in my opinion), like seriously a Snek with a ton of E and a big STR bless would beat out all current XIB gods in the expansion department (in my opinion)
Though I consider myself bad at DOM5 so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Very late here but there is one reason to get Ah Kin and that is blood randoms to summon Ozelotls.
EDIT: okay he mentions this later, good.
Xibalbais based on mayan mythology (Xibalba is the mayan underworld)
I thought it was gonna be NaBa next? Not complaining just curious.
Yeah not sure if im going to do naba, didnt really record anything but national overview for it yet and its a kinda meh game so far.
@@LucidTactics Figured it was something like that. Thanks for the timely response.
I think the main problem with playing a blood nation, especially one that is kind of weak early on, but is very efficient at blood hunting and get very strong in the mid/late game is that experienced opponents will want to take you out ASAP, and they are likely to be able to get others to join them in doing so pretty easily
At least, that is what I do in my games (and what I see many other players do), so usually all major blood nations are dead by the late mid game.
I never had a major blood nation neighbor that even made it into the mid game...
Yeah, thats definitely an issue for nations like xybalba.
In early age are there more people playing rush nations or mid-late game nations? It might depend a lot on who is starting next to you and how well diplomacy goes.
I wonder if enforcing a mandatory NAP for all players in the first year might help solve this. Even as a toggle option in the game creation.
bumps would still happen but it might give certain nations a chance to actually build up some decent forces and research.
I always thought it was weird that Zotz had cold-blooded considering that bats are mammals. That being said, bats don't usually live in cold regions so I guess it makes some sense.
MA/LA is even stranger. You have bats that very much suffer in cold, but frogs that are no more hindered than any other standard unit in cold scales, and some annoying anti-synergies as a result.
Oh boi.
Another way in which Zotz were nerfed in doms 5 is that they got a worse weapon - the one in doms 4 did a few more points of damage.
If you click on precision you see patrol stats.
Ah thanks!
@@LucidTactics Yeah handy trick. I think I put up my gawd awful blitz with xibalba on the tube. Hard god damn work.
where can we get your map?
In the steam workshop!
OK, here's a book. (But no, you _don't_ have to reply to this.) I just watched this video for the second time. In fact, I'm going back through the whole series - which I don't remember all that well - because I've been trying to play EA Xibalba with... limited success. :)
I wanted to play an awake expander, just because that's so much fun, so I did that in my first game. And that worked well (at least until my god bumped with an entire army, _with_ the god of Kailasa, where I wasn't expecting them - although that was long after expansion). But I seemed to be short of money all the time.
And I didn't dare send my god outside of her dominion, where her bless wouldn't work. (She died in that battle with Kailasa when I took that risk once. Admittedly, her dominion wouldn't have saved her in that one. I just wanted her to hold down a fort siege for _one turn,_ and I wasn't expecting her to need to fight at all. Bad miscalculation. Well, with all of our priests, I got her back the next turn, minus one level of nature magic.)
Then I thought I'd try a scales build. And against the AI (I only play SP), we expanded just fine. It turned out I didn't _need_ an awake expander (though our attrition was really high). The problem, in both games (but especially the second one), is that my units are just so _weak._ They die in droves. Kailasa had an invulnerability bless, so we struggled to kill them when they attacked. And in my current game, Arcoscephale has a killer bless on their flying cavalry, and my poor bats just can't seem to damage them at all.
I'm always too greedy, anyway. Playing against the AI, I always have far more provinces than the other nations, and I try to build forts on the best provinces. But even with a scales build, I struggle to do that _and_ recruit mages _and_ recruit bats, all at the same time. And the problem always appears during my second year, when I'm attacked by a neighbor with _much_ stronger units, and I haven't built up enough research or enough mages,... or else I just don't know how to fight them.
My first game was actually doing better than my second attempt. (I haven't abandoned either game. I'm just experimenting.) Arcoscephale is tiny, compared to us. But it's rare that I win a fight, even when their armies aren't very big, because they outclass us so badly. And I can't swamp them with numbers when we lose nearly everyone even in a _successful_ battle.
I just now got Horde of Skeletons, but we don't have too many mages who can cast it, and my province graph looks like an octopus, since I was greedy enough to just keep expanding everywhere I could, even when it made little strategic sense. Heh, heh.
Right now, I'm thinking I should compromise with my two previous attempts and pick something right in the middle - a dormant titan or monster who _can_ fight during the second year, if we need him, but will still give us decent scales.
Anyway, long story short, this is why I'm re-watching this series. You've already given me some ideas I missed (and forgot from the first time I watched this video). And I don't remember what you did for a pretender, either. Besides, these are always fun. Thanks!
Bats don't like... Well, Fighting... I think you have to make a big use of your mages and shit
@@yugonostalgia8961
Yeah, I did well with this nation when I could survive the early game and amass enough of everything. But that took awhile. And it would always require having particular neighbors who weren't mindlessly aggressive.
I only play single-player, which is undoubtedly easier than multiplayer, but the AI is tends to be really weird. Often - no matter which nation I play - a nation starting clear across the map will just expand in a straight line right for my capital - ignoring the indie provinces in every other direction and ignoring their other neighbors. So I get in an early war with someone who has no reason to be fighting me at all.
And you can't raid in single-player the way I see it in these multiplayer games, because the AI usually has the money for lots and lots of PD (and the money to outspend me for mercenaries, too, even when I bid far more than they're worth).
On the other hand, a human neighbor would know how weak bats are at first, so I'm not sure how much difference that would make. Except, I suppose, that they know a very early war would limit their own expansion elsewhere and invite an attack by their other neighbors.
Anyway, I did enjoy the last Xibalba game I tried, but I started over several times. :)
@@Bill_Garthright honestly just theorycrafting EA Xilbalba probably does better in multiplayer than singleplayer. The one thing bats like least of all is swarms of garbage... Even AI mass recruit indie light infantry trounce bats. But with human opponents early on you're more likely to be facing a small group of sacreds or a monster - something you can counter with early magic or a bless
@@Bill_Garthright did you watch Lucid's Xilbalba game? He did really well against vanheim and Agatha - it's just he was too broke to find a counter to neifelheim, which is Xilbalba #1 threat anyways so
@@yugonostalgia8961
Well, Lucid _typically_ does better than I do. :)
But you might be right about the difference between MP and SP.
Re: unlimited beast bats, I did that in a blitz once when I was relatively new but I just used them as blood patrollers xD
Nerfbat. Nerf. Bat. Hehe.
That one went over my head. :P
@@Madhattersinjeans There is an expression "[something] recieved a beating with a nerfbat", which is the more flowery way of saying something got nerfed in a videogame.
In this case the bat was hit with a nerfbat, which resulted in a nerfed bat.
Zotz, Skinshifters, Mictlan Sacreds, certain Elves, some cav... there's actually a surprising number of units that got much less massable because of Recruitment Points.
not a fan of 60 min+ national overviews, not gonna lie. But that map of yours looks AMAZING!!! I love it! may not be entirely balanced, but that's often the case with interesting and flavourful maps, keep up the good work!
Oh. Oh no. Not this game...
The time has come!
Many a salt mines might have been created during this game
The salt must flow
Earth quake seems like it could be problematic to use, as it would kill all your blood slaves..
I think you could just bring a couple slaves for starting the sabbath, maybe a buff and clear your encumberance and then start earthquaking. No need to bring too many slaves.
Dude sorry but 70 minutes is insane. You can easily fit in 20 minutes with a sketch of a script